so raise it in anger, or just let it hang

far too much to write about here. and lately i’ve been thinking about oversharing, after listening to the book “cleaving: my story of meat, marriage and obsession” (which SUCKS but i have been unable to stop listening) and watching the movie “searching for angela shelton”, both of which could be categorized as major overshares. also i am writing a new zine, which has been intense but is going really well. it’s funny how i become a much better writer when i’m single. maybe one day i will reconcile the romantic-love part of my brain with the love-for-everything-else brain and they can exist in harmony, in their correct proportions. maybe i’m learning that now.

but i want to share this beautiful facebook update from my pal kassia, who lives in oakland CA: living the dream: last night we tore down the fences around Oscar Grant Plaza, held a general assembly with almost 2 thousand people. occupy wall street is going to give us $20,000 and 100 tents, there will be a solidarity march tomorrow in Eygpt and they will chant “Cairo and Oakland are one hand!!”….after that we marched down to the jail where we shouted “free them all!” and the lights flickering on and off in their cells was one of the most beautiful things ever.

got me a little misty eyed, to be honest. even when the world takes your voice away, you still have a light switch. you still have a fucking lightswitch. they don’t get to take that, at least.

hard times require furious dancing

this past week, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR people from my past that i honestly never thought i’d hang out with again have come back into my life. 2 were people who i didn’t have any major drama with, just mutual friendship neglecting, but i saw them at occupy pgh and we reconnected so hard, so fiercely, on the exact ten year anniversary of us meeting each other. one of them said, i know i’m a drug addict, i’m getting help, and i didn’t realize how much i needed to hear that from her until she said it. didn’t realize how much i wanted it and how much i thought it would never happen.

person #3 is someone who was involved in a very bad situation with me a long time ago in philly, and she sent me a facebook message asking if i’m the ocean that used to live at a certain house, and i said yes. this is a situation where i and my friends were very clearly in the wrong, and if she wanted to contact me just to say, “FUCK YOU!” it would be perfectly valid. but she didn’t contact me to say that, she contacted me to say hi. and that she is sorry we met in such a bad way. and hello again.

person #4 is perhaps the most amazing, my ex-housemate/bestfriend who many of you know. we had a huge falling out, and as i hugged him goodbye at the bus stop at 46th and butler four januaries ago i thought, “i will never see this person again.” i mourned him violently, as if he had died, because he felt so dead to me.

but he isn’t dead. and last week he sent me a message saying he’d be in pittsburgh and he wanted to see me. he said i’m sorry for what happened. he said i miss you so much. he said hello, old friend.

and it was amazing. what that did to me. a sincere heartfelt apology. it erased so much of the anger and resentment, most of which was already gone anyway. and last night we proved that bus stop prophecy wrong. we sat on a couch at a dingy bar, pounding back drinks like good children of alcoholics, our knees touching, and we talked like nothing had ever happened. he said something about my current situation that comforted me in a way nobody has been able to comfort me. and we were right there with each other, our intense parallel aries lives still parallel even though we hadn’t talked about them in so long. it filled a hole in my heart that i hadn’t even noticed was there.

and oh, we danced, me and him and amanda and nate too, so wildly and furiously. the title of this post is also the title of an alice walker book. it’s true, man, it’s true. and now i’m at work, stinky & on four hours of sleep, but it was worth it. so worth it.

this is the place where time reverses. dead men talk to all the pretty nurses

so, the director of my job hates me, and randomly forced me to go back to training, for something i already know how to do. this isn’t, in and of itself, a super big deal. it sucks on multiple levels that i won’t bore you with, but sitting in a room for 4 days listening to someone talk about something you already know isn’t the end of the world. except for, it kind of is, because i am in a very bad place mentally right now and sitting in a room with nothing to distract me is so the last thing i need right now. i read. i write letters. mostly i try not to cry. sometimes i succeed and sometimes i have to run out.

i am so scared. i am literally hanging on by a thread. i have never, ever, ever been in such a scary place and i have no idea how to navigate it. never been here after 29 years of living crazy. never been here, even after everything.

today on our 15 minute break i went across the street, to work, and begged my supervisor to let me come back this week. i was fucking begging to do work! and he wouldn’t let me! he seemed like he was going to let me, and then went to talk to director-who-hates-me and she said no, there is no way i can come back this week, i have to sit through the whole fucking thing. i could hear her laughing maliciously in her office. fuck you.

and my supervisor asked if i was okay and i said no and really, really what i wanted to say was, i am going fucking crazy and if i have to sit in this room with my thoughts i think i really will go crazy, i think i will go there and never come back. i know you think that i am just making a big deal about nothing, but this is literally torturous for me right now. but there is nothing in the world, with the way it is currently structured, that will let me say that. there is nothing i can do, besides quit. that’s actually what the other mentally unstable queer person at my job who was bullied into re-training did. i thought he’d just gotten out of it, and i went to look for him, and everyone said, oh, he’s gone,

and how badly do i want to be gone. and how badly do i want to leave. and if i had any kind of financial safety net i would leave, if i did not have a big plan that requires lots of money, if i were not in debt, i would leave. but i can’t do that, i can’t do that, so i read a book under my desk, i circle breathe sitting at my chair. i think, please, please, i need a miracle. i am not a beggar. i am not weak. but i feel like that so much right now. i need something. please, please, please.

the following things have happened.

today my sister and i were treated to a really cute moment. an elderly neighbor of mine was outside his house, bending down and saying, “oh! how did YOU get out here?” we thought he was just crazy, but it turned out he was talking to his turtle! i asked if the turtle had escaped and he said, “yes! i’ve had her for eighteen years, now!” he looked overjoyed. i don’t think i can express how sweet it was, but it was really sweet and made us both happy.

i saw a pigeon pecking at the ground the other day and realized it was eating another pigeon that had been flattened by a car. it was really gross & upsetting, moreso than usual when one deals with roadkill and cannibalism.

i had two really healing hugs at the anarchist bookstore (same person, different events.)

i made a huge life decision. everything, everything is changing, and soon(-ish. not really soon enough in my opinion.) it’s kind of too huge to talk about here.

i keep seeing palindromes everywhere, and it FREAKS ME OUT. i am so scared of palindromes. but this made me feel better (warning: it’s long and very woo-woo). short version: they are signs that everything is changing. well, duh. and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, a sign that i am on the right path. i really don’t know though. i’ve been so fucking lost.

be careful what you wish for: i was just re-reading my blog from october 2010, to see what has changed in my life, and i came across this paragraph: but here’s the thing. i know, for a fact, that i am better off alone, even though i love my partner, even though i acknowledge all the ways he’s bettered my life (and the few ways he’s fucked it up, i can acknoweldge those and still, somehow, love) and still miss those days before him, alone in my teal room on a twinsize bed, surrounded by words, living for words and art and activism and love. i miss those days, and i have been trying to relive them, going on adventures by myself, riding my bike long ways alone at night. i almost had an affair this week, with a straight boy (and oh how weird that is, how embarrasssing almost) and it didn’t work out but it made me realize how great it is to be queer, to make our own rules, to be fiercely autonomous and independent always,
i forgot who i was, i forgot for so long, but riding my bike home drunk i thought, it’s a good day to die, it’s a good day to die, not because i want to die but because i want to be brave again. i was brave for so long, and then it was easier not to be, but then i realized that’s not who i am. i’m not meant for safe, for nice, for easy. and oh boy, do i ever not have safe and nice and easy now. and i do live in a teal bedroom! a different one, and on a queen sized bed, and i am surrounded by words and living for words and living, pretty much, because of words. and oh, do i have to be brave, even when i don’t want to, even when i feel like i will absolutely die if i have to be brave for one more second. and even in this time of heartbreak i am very full of love, and it has come out in the strangest and most unexpected ways. so i guess i am living for that, too.

i am writing what may be the most intense zine ever (and, if you read my zines, you know that’s pretty fucking intense). i am also working on my 2nd book. i am thoroughly tired of my 1st book and don’t want to do anything to get it published anymore. i actually kind of hate it. but hopefully that’s just a phase!

i’m too busy for the internet. which is a good thing.

last week i had the thought, one day, i will not have to constantly remind myself that i need to breathe. one day, i will just be able to breathe.